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The WNBA had a record year in terms of growth in viewership and attendance, and with that the players now want a bigger piece of the financial pie.
The players union and league have until Nov. 1 to potentially opt out of their current collective bargaining agreement. It is likely that the players will decide to do so before the deadline as they have a list of wants, including increased salaries now that the WNBA has entered a historic 11-year media rights deal with Disney, Amazon Prime and NBC for $200 million a year.
Breanna Stewart said there's been meetings within the players' union, of which she is a vice president. She hasn't been able to make as many as she'd like with her team, the New York Liberty, playing in the WNBA Finals right now.
“They've been good, a lot of communication, things that we want to be better, the time is coming,” Stewart said. “It's a hard thing to navigate while the season is still happening. I think that we’re pretty much in a place where we know what we want to do.
“Once we do do it, having the conversation of how much of an uphill battle is this going to be going into the new season.”
If the union does opt out, the current CBA, which was set to expire in 2027, will still be in effect next season so the two sides have a year to come to an agreement.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said at her state-of-the-league address before Game 1 of the Finals that she has engaged with union leadership through the year.
“This is going to be an opportunity to listen to one another and take this league to the next level for generations to come,” Engelbert said. “I look forward to building the future of the league and sitting down with the players. Whether they opt out, not opt out.
"I suspect that given the transformation of the league that we’ve been working so hard on, building this long-term economic model, we’ve already returned to the players through charter, through increasing playoff bonuses a couple years ago by over 50%. So we’ll continue to do that, and when we get to the bargaining table we’ll continue to talk about the issues that are most important to the players.”
Engelbert said that with the new media rights deal in place and many more corporate partners the strength of the league is in a great spot. She also went on to say that the players have been getting a lot more marketing deals making them into more household names.
“There’s virtually not a sporting event you can turn on where one of our players is not in an ad spot,” she said. “That was not happening five years ago. Look at Aliyah Boston and Sabrina (Ionescu) and A’ja (Wilson) and so many of our players in these ad spots. I think that’s a good sign, too, as we think about the future of this game and the future of the agreement between the Players Association and the owners.”
Stewart said a few things that the union would like to see in the next CBA include pensions, better child care benefits and increased salaries. She also would love to see the charter system the league put into place this year be put in writing.
“One thing I really think is interesting is pension and back pay to players that have ‘x’ amount of years of service,” Stewart said. “The other thing is family planning and child care benefits can be a little bit better.”
Currently a player must have eight years in the league to benefit from them.
“Eight years of service is a really long time," Stewart said. "Not many players are in the league for eight years.”
Stewart also said she'd love to see teams have the ability to have a million dollar player. Currently the top salary is about $250,000.
“I think that making sure the salary cap continues to grow and correlates with the TV deal,” she said. “I don’t know how you break that down.”
